Proteins carry out virtually all of the complex processes of life, from photosynthesis to signal transduction and the immune response. To understand and control these intricate activities, a better understanding of the relationship between the structure and function of proteins is needed.
Unlike small organic molecule synthesis wherein almost any structural change can be made to influence functional properties of a compound, the synthesis of proteins is limited to changes encoded by the twenty natural amino acids. The genetic code of every known organism, from bacteria to human, encodes the same twenty common amino acids. These amino acids can be modified by post-translational modification of proteins, e.g., glycosylation, phosphorylation or oxidation, or in rarer instances, by the enzymatic modification of aminoacylated suppressor tRNAs, e.g., in the case of selenocysteine. Nonetheless, polypeptides, which are synthesized from only these 20 simple building blocks, carry out all of the complex processes of life.
Both site-directed and random mutagenesis, in which specific amino acids in a protein can be replaced with any of the other nineteen common amino acids, have become important tools for understanding the relationship between the structure and function of proteins. These methodologies have made possible the generation of proteins with enhanced properties, including stability, catalytic activity and binding specificity. Nevertheless, changes in proteins are limited to the 20 common amino acids, most of which have simple functional groups. See Knowles, J. R. Tinkering with enzymes: what are we learning? Science, 236:1252–1258 (1987); and, Zoller, M. J., Smith, M. Oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis of DNA fragments cloned into M13 vectors, Methods Enzymol, 100:468–500 (1983). By expanding the genetic code to include additional amino acids with novel biological, chemical or physical properties, the properties of proteins, e.g., the size, acidity, nucleophilicity, hydrogen-bonding, hydrophobic properties, etc., can be modified as compared to a protein composed of only amino acids from the 20 common amino acids, e.g., as in a naturally occurring protein.
Several strategies have been employed to introduce unnatural amino acids into proteins. The first experiments involved the derivatization of amino acids with reactive side-chains such as Lys, Cys and Tyr, for example, the conversion of lysine to Nε-acetyl-lysine. Chemical synthesis also provides a straightforward method to incorporate unnatural amino acids, but routine solid-phase peptide synthesis is generally limited to small peptides or proteins with less than 100 residues. With the recent development of enzymatic ligation and native chemical ligation of peptide fragments, it is possible to make larger proteins, but such methods are not easily scaled. See, e.g., P. E. Dawson and S. B. H. Kent, Annu. Rev. Biochem., 69:923 (2000). A general in vitro biosynthetic method in which a suppressor tRNA chemically acylated with the desired unnatural amino acid is added to an in vitro extract capable of supporting protein biosynthesis, has been used to site-specifically incorporate over 100 unnatural amino acids into a variety of proteins of virtually any size. See, e.g., V. W. Cornish, D. Mendel and P. G. Schultz, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., 1995, 34:621 (1995); C. J. Noren, S. J. Anthony-Cahill, M. C. Griffith, P. G. Schultz, A general methodfor site-specific incorporation of unnatural amino acids into proteins, Science 244 182–188 (1989); and, J. D. Bain, C. G. Glabe, T. A. Dix, A. R. Chamberlin, E. S. Diala, Biosynthetic site-specific incorporation of a non-natural amino acid into a polypeptide, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 111 8013–8014 (1989). A broad range of functional groups has been introduced into proteins for studies of protein stability, protein folding, enzyme mechanism, and signal transduction. Although these studies demonstrate that the protein biosynthetic machinery tolerates a wide variety of amino acid side chains, the method is technically demanding, and yields of mutant proteins are low.
Over 50 years ago, it was found that many analogs of natural amino acids inhibit the growth of bacteria. Analysis of the proteins produced in the presence of these amino acid analogs revealed that they had been substituted for their natural counterparts to various extents. See, e.g., M. H. Richmond, Bacteriol. Rev., 26:398 (1962). This occurs because the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase, the enzyme responsible for the attachment of the correct amino acid to its cognate tRNA, cannot rigorously distinguish the analog from the corresponding natural amino acid. For instance, norleucine is charged by methionyl-tRNA synthetase, and p-fluorophenylalanine is charged by phenylalanine-tRNA synthetase. See, D. B. Cowie, G. N. Cohen, E. T. Bolton and H. de Robichon-Szulmajster, Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 1959, 34:39 (1959); and, R. Munier and G. N. Cohen, Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 1959, 31:378 (1959).
An in vivo method, termed selective pressure incorporation, was later developed to exploit the promiscuity of wild-type synthetases. See, e.g., N. Budisa, C. Minks, S. Alefelder, W. Wenger, F. M. Dong, L. Moroder and R. Huber, FASEB J., 13:41 (1999). An auxotrophic strain, in which the relevant metabolic pathway supplying the cell with a particular natural amino acid is switched off, is grown in minimal media containing limited concentrations of the natural amino acid, while transcription of the target gene is repressed. At the onset of a stationary growth phase, the natural amino acid is depleted and replaced with the unnatural amino acid analog. Induction of expression of the recombinant protein results in the accumulation of a protein containing the unnatural analog. For example, using this strategy, o, m and p-fluorophenylalanines have been incorporated into proteins, and exhibit two characteristic shoulders in the UV spectrum which can be easily identified, see, e.g., C. Minks, R. Huber, L. Moroder and N. Budisa, Anal. Biochem., 284:29 (2000); trifluoromethionine has been used to replace methionine in bacteriophage λ lysozyme to study its interaction with chitooligosaccharide ligands by 19F NMR, see, e.g., H. Duewel, E. Daub, V. Robinson and J. F. Honek, Biochemistry, 36:3404 (1997); and trifluoroleucine has been inserted in place of leucine, resulting in increased thermal and chemical stability of a leucine-zipper protein. See, e.g., Y. Tang, G. Ghirlanda, W. A. Petka, T. Nakajima, W. F. DeGrado and D. A. Tirrell, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., 40:1494 (2001). Moreover, selenomethionine and telluromethionine are incorporated into various recombinant proteins to facilitate the solution of phases in X-ray crystallography. See, e.g., W. A. Hendrickson, J. R. Horton and D. M. Lemaster, EMBO J., 9:1665 (1990); J. O. Boles, K. Lewinski, M. Kunkle, J. D. Odom, B. Dunlap, L. Lebioda and M. Hatada, Nat. Struct. Biol., 1:283 (1994); N. Budisa, B. Steipe, P. Demange, C. Eckerskom, J. Kellermann and R. Huber, Eur. J. Biochem., 230:788 (1995); and, N. Budisa, W. Karnbrock, S. Steinbacher, A. Humm, L. Prade, T. Neuefeind, L. Moroder and R. Huber, J. Mol. Biol., 270:616 (1997). Methionine analogs with alkene or alkyne functionalities have also been inserted efficiently, allowing for additional modification of proteins by chemical means. See, e.g., J. C. M. van Hest and D. A. Tirrell, FEBS Lett., 428:68 (1998); J. C. M. van Hest, K. L. Kiick and D. A. Tirrell, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 122:1282 (2000); and, K. L. Kiick and D. A. Tirrell, Tetrahedron, 56:9487 (2000).
The success of this method depends on the recognition of the unnatural amino acid analogs by aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, which, in general, requires high selectivity to insure the fidelity of protein translation. Therefore, the range of chemical functionality accessible via this route is limited. For instance, although thiaproline can be incorporated quantitatively into proteins, oxaproline and selenoproline cannot. See, N. Budisa, C. Minks, F. J. Medrano, J. Lutz, R. Huber and L. Moroder, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 95:455 (1998). One way to expand the scope of this method is to relax the substrate specificity of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, which has been achieved in a limited number of cases. For example, it was found that replacement of Ala294 by Gly in Escherichia coli phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetase (PheRS) increases the size of substrate binding pocket, and results in the acylation of tRNAPhe by p-Cl-phenylalanine (p-Cl-Phe). See, M. Ibba, P. Kast and H. Hennecke, Biochemistry, 33:7107 (1994). An Escherichia coli strain harboring this mutant PheRS allows the incorporation of p-Cl-phenylalanine or p-Br-phenylalanine in place of phenylalanine. See, e.g., M. Ibba and H. Hennecke, FEBS Lett., 364:272 (1995); and, N. Sharma, R. Furter, P. Kast and D. A. Tirrell, FEBS Lett., 467:37 (2000). Similarly, a point mutation Phe130Ser near the amino acid binding site of Escherichia coli tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase was shown to allow azatyrosine to be incorporated more efficiently than tyrosine. See, F. Hamano-Takaku, T. Iwama, S. Saito-Yano, K. Takaku, Y. Monden, M. Kitabatake, D. Soll and S. Nishimura, J. Biol. Chem., 275:40324 (2000).
The fidelity of aminoacylation is maintained both at the level of substrate discrimination and proofreading of non-cognate intermediates and products. Therefore, an alternative strategy to incorporate unnatural amino acids into proteins in vivo is to modify synthetases that have proofreading mechanisms. These synthetases cannot discriminate and therefore activate amino acids that are structurally similar to the cognate natural amino acids. This error is corrected at a separate site, which deacylates the mischarged amino acid from the tRNA to maintain the fidelity of protein translation. If the proofreading activity of the synthetase is disabled, structural analogs that are misactivated may escape the editing function and be incorporated. This approach has been demonstrated recently with the valyl-tRNA synthetase (ValRS). See, V. Doring, H. D. Mootz, L. A. Nangle, T. L. Hendrickson, V. de Crecy-Lagard, P. Schimmel and P. Marliere, Science, 292:501 (2001). ValRS can misaminoacylate tRNAVal with Cys, Thr, or aminobutyrate (Abu); these noncognate amino acids are subsequently hydrolyzed by the editing domain. After random mutagenesis of the Escherichia coli chromosome, a mutant Escherichia coli strain was selected that has a mutation in the editing site of ValRS. This edit-defective ValRS incorrectly charges tRNAVal with Cys. Because Abu sterically resembles Cys (—SH group of Cys is replaced with —CH3 in Abu), the mutant ValRS also incorporates Abu into proteins when this mutant Escherichia coli strain is grown in the presence of Abu. Mass spectrometric analysis shows that about 24% of valines are replaced by Abu at each valine position in the native protein.
At least one major limitation of the methods described above is that all sites corresponding to a particular natural amino acid throughout the protein are replaced. The extent of incorporation of the natural and unnatural amino acid may also vary—only in rare cases can quantitative substitution be achieved since it is difficult to completely deplete the cognate natural amino acid inside the cell. Another limitation is that these strategies make it difficult to study the mutant protein in living cells, because the multi-site incorporation of analogs often results in toxicity. Finally, this method is applicable in general only to close structural analogs of the common amino acids, again because substitutions must be tolerated at all sites in the genome.
Solid-phase synthesis and semi-synthetic methods have also allowed for the synthesis of a number of small proteins containing novel amino acids. For example, see the following publications and references cited within: Crick, F. J. C., Barrett; L. Brenner, S. Watts-Tobin, R. General nature of the genetic code for proteins. Nature, 192:1227–1232 (1961); Hofmann, K., Bohn, H. Studies on polypeptides. XXXVI. The effect of pyrazole-imidazole replacements on the S-protein activating potency of an S-peptide fragment, J. Am. Chem., 5914–5919 (1966); Kaiser, E. T. Synthetic approaches to biologically active peptides and proteins including enzymes, Acc. Chem. Res., 47–54 (1989); Nakatsuka, T., Sasaki, T., Kaiser, E. T. Peptide segment coupling catalyzed by the semisynthetic enzyme thiosubtilisin, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 109:3808–3810 (1987); Schnolzer, M., Kent, S B H. Constructing proteins by dovetailing unprotected synthetic peptides: backbone-engineered HIV protease, Science, 256(5054):221–225 (1992); Chaiken, I. M. Semisynthetic peptides and proteins, CRC Crit. Rev. Biochem., 11(3):255–301 (1981); Offord, R. E. Protein engineering by chemical means? Protein Eng., 1(3):151–157 (1987); and, Jackson, D. Y., Burnier, J., Quan, C., Stanley, M., Tom, J., Wells, J. A. A Designed Peptide Ligase for Total Synthesis of Ribonuclease A with Unnatural Catalytic Residues, Science, 266(5183):243–247(1994).
Chemical modification has been used to introduce a variety of unnatural side chains, including cofactors, spin labels and oligonucleotides into proteins in vitro. See, e.g., Corey, D. R., Schultz, P. G. Generation of a hybrid sequence-specific single-stranded deoxyribonuclease, Science, 283(4832):1401–1403 (1987); Kaiser, E. T., Lawrence D. S., Rokita, S. E. The chemical modification of enzymatic specificity, Rev. Biochem., 54:565–595 (1985); Kaiser, E. T., Lawrence, D. S. Chemical mutation of enzyme active sites, Science, 226(4674):505–511 (1984); Neet, K. E., Nanci A, Koshland, D. E. Properties of thiol-subtilisin, J. Biol. Chem., 243(24):6392–6401 (1968); Polgar, L. B., M. L. A new enzyme containing a synthetically formed active site. Thiol-subtilisin. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 88:3153–3154 (1966); and, Pollack, S. J., Nakayama, G. Schultz, P. G. Introduction of nucleophiles and spectroscopic probes into antibody combining sites, Science, 242(4881):1038–1040 (1988).
Alternatively, biosynthetic methods that employ chemically modified aminoacyl-tRNAs have been used to incorporate several biophysical probes into proteins synthesized in vitro. See the following publications and references cited within: Brunner, J. New Photolabeling and crosslinking methods, Annu. Rev. Biochem., 62:483–514 (1993); and, Krieg, U. C., Walter, P., Hohnson, A. E. Photocrosslinking of the signal sequence of nascent preprolactin of the 54-kilodalton polypeptide of the signal recognition particle, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, 83(22):8604–8608 (1986).
Previously, it has been shown that unnatural amino acids can be site-specifically incorporated into proteins in vitro by the addition of chemically aminoacylated suppressor tRNAs to protein synthesis reactions programmed with a gene containing a desired amber nonsense mutation. Using these approaches, one can substitute a number of the common twenty amino acids with close structural homologues, e.g., fluorophenylalanine for phenylalanine, using strains auxotrophic for a particular amino acid. See, e.g., Noren, C. J., Anthony-Cahill, Griffith, M. C., Schultz, P. G. A general method for site-specific incorporation of unnatural amino acids into proteins, Science, 244:182–188 (1989); M. W. Nowak, et al., Science 268:439–42 (1995); Bain, J. D., Glabe, C. G., Dix, T. A., Chamberlin, A. R., Diala, E. S. Biosynthetic site-specific Incorporation of a non-natural amino acid into a polypeptide, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 111:8013–8014 (1989); N. Budisa et al., FASEB J. 13:41–51 (1999); Ellman, J. A., Mendel, D., Anthony-Cahill, S., Noren, C. J., Schultz, P. G. Biosynthetic method for introducing unnatural amino acids site-specifically into proteins, Methods in Enz., 301–336 (1992); and, Mendel, D., Cornish, V. W. & Schultz, P. G. Site-Directed Mutagenesis with an Expanded Genetic Code, Annu. Rev. Biophys. Biomol. Struct. 24, 435–62 (1995).
For example, a suppressor tRNA was prepared that recognized the stop codon UAG and was chemically aminoacylated with an unnatural amino acid. Conventional site-directed mutagenesis was used to introduce the stop codon TAG, at the site of interest in the protein gene. See, e.g., Sayers, J. R., Schmidt, W. Eckstein, F. 5′, 3′Exonuclease in phosphorothioate-based oligonucleotide-directed mutagenesis, Nucleic Acids Res., 16(3):791–802 (1988). When the acylated suppressor tRNA and the mutant gene were combined in an in vitro transcription/translation system, the unnatural amino acid was incorporated in response to the UAG codon which gave a protein containing that amino acid at the specified position. Experiments using [3H]-Phe and experiments with α-hydroxy acids demonstrated that only the desired amino acid is incorporated at the position specified by the UAG codon and that this amino acid is not incorporated at any other site in the protein. See, e.g., Noren, et al, supra; and, Ellman, J. A., Mendel, D., Schultz, P. G. Site-specific incorporation of novel backbone structures into proteins, Science, 197–200 (1992).
In general, these in vitro approaches are limited by difficulties in achieving site-specific incorporation of the amino acids, by the requirement that the amino acids be simple derivatives of the common twenty amino acids or problems inherent in the synthesis of large proteins or peptide fragments.
Microinjection techniques have also been use incorporate unnatural amino acids into proteins. See, e.g., M. W. Nowak, P. C. Kearney, J. R. Sampson, M. E. Saks, C. G. Labarca, S. K. Silverman, W. G. Zhong, J. Thorson, J. N. Abelson, N. Davidson, P. G. Schultz, D. A. Dougherty and H. A. Lester, Science, 268:439 (1995); and, D. A. Dougherty, Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol., 4:645 (2000). A Xenopus oocyte was coinjected with two RNA species made in vitro: an mRNA encoding the target protein with a UAG stop codon at the amino acid position of interest and an amber suppressor tRNA aminoacylated with the desired unnatural amino acid. The translational machinery of the oocyte then inserted the unnatural amino acid at the position specified by UAG. This method has allowed in vivo structure-function studies of integral membrane proteins, which are generally not amenable to in vitro expression systems. Examples include the incorporation of a fluorescent amino acid into tachykinin neurokinin-2 receptor to measure distances by fluorescence resonance energy transfer, see, e.g., G. Turcatti, K. Nemeth, M. D. Edgerton, U. Meseth, F. Talabot, M. Peitsch, J. Knowles, H. Vogel and A. Chollet, J. Biol. Chem., 271:19991 (1996); the incorporation of biotinylated amino acids to identify surface-exposed residues in ion channels, see, e.g., J. P. Gallivan, H. A. Lester and D. A. Dougherty, Chem. Biol., 4:739 (1997); the use of caged tyrosine analogs to monitor conformational changes in an ion channel in real time, see, e.g., J. C. Miller, S. K. Silverman, P. M. England, D. A. Dougherty and H. A. Lester, Neuron, 20:619 (1998); and, the use of α-hydroxy amino acids to change ion channel backbones for probing their gating mechanisms, see, e.g., P. M. England, Y. Zhang, D. A. Dougherty and H. A. Lester, Cell, 96:89 (1999); and, T. Lu, A. Y. Ting, J. Mainland, L. Y. Jan, P. G. Schultz and J. Yang, Nat. Neurosci., 4:239 (2001).
However, there are limitations microinjection method, e.g., the suppressor tRNA has to be chemically aminoacylated with the unnatural amino acid in vitro, and the acylated tRNA is consumed as a stoichiometric reagent during translation and cannot be regenerated. This limitation results in poor suppression efficiency and low protein yields, necessitating highly sensitive techniques to assay the mutant protein, such as electrophysiological measurements. Moreover, this method is only applicable to cells that can be microinjected.
The ability to incorporate unnatural amino acids directly into proteins in vivo offers the advantages of high yields of mutant proteins, technical ease, the potential to study the mutant proteins in cells or possibly in living organisms and the use of these mutant proteins in therapeutic treatments. The ability to include unnatural amino acids with various sizes, acidities, nucleophilicities, hydrophobicities, and other properties into proteins can greatly expand our ability to rationally and systematically manipulate the structures of proteins, both to probe protein function and create new proteins or organisms with novel properties. However, the process is difficult, because the complex nature of tRNA-synthetase interactions that are required to achieve a high degree of fidelity in protein translation. Therefore, improvements to the process are needed to provide more efficient and effective methods to alter the biosynthetic machinery of the cell. The present invention addresses these and other needs, as will be apparent upon review of the following disclosure.